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Wednesday 19 September 2007

Goofy reaction to the Motu Proprio

Father Z rips into a letter put out by Paul Inwood, a director of Diocesan Liturgy in some British diocese.
Frankly, it is beyond goofy, (the letter, not Fr Z's fisking thereof,) it is so inaccurate, misleading, contentious and just plain unnecessary.
I am still trying to figure out the hatred, (yes, that is the word I mean to use,) some seemingly well-meaning people exhibit toward the Extraordinary Form.
I cannot equate it with hatred of the Catholic Church, a la Fulton Sheen's famous comment that people oppose what they think the Church is and believes, rather than what She actually is and believes.
This is because the most strident opposition comes from older people, people who did experience the Extraordinary form when it was ordinary.
Why do they hate it? what have they to be afraid of?
When challenged to answer, almost universally they deny that is is either hatred or fear, but i see what I see, I hear what I hear.
In blogdom, there are a few older laywomen, mostly, whose palpable fear is that power is going to be wrested from them.
IRL, that is not the issue, the reaction is more visceral and less clearly articulated.
"Being forced to listen to a language I don't understand," while at least rational, is dangerous territory in a community that experienced the ugliness we did earlier this year, from Anglophones whose Triduum was "ruined" by the inclusion of some Spanish in the Masses.
But that's another topic.
Herewith, the letter from Mr Inwood (composer, I believe of the lamentable "Center of My Life.") (Which would actually be not-bad were the notes and words not shoe-horned into a metric pattern -- a good number of Sacro-sacchro-pop stand-bys could be drastically improved if they didn't make so much effort to be a hit on Corny Collins, be the possessor of "a good beat" and be "easy to dance to." But that's another topic,) and the "information piece":
...........
I attach an information piece that is due to appear in the forthcoming issue of our diocesan newspaper. I hope it will clarify some of the issues, particularly as regards our view that the Motu Proprio does not require bishops to provide training for priests or people who may become interested in the pre-conciliar form of the Roman Rite, (now described by the Pope himself as "extraordinary" in the sense of "not normative" but only asks them to make provision for those who have in the past made known their interest in a consistent and organized fashion.
[That seems to me a patent falsehood, as anyone actually reading the motu proprio would easily find out, so I wonder why Mr Inwood, or whomever he is serving as the mouthpiece for if he hasn't read the directive himself, bothers. Are they trusting that the adherents of the EF are so ancient that they won't know how to work that new-fangled Internet Machine or the Picture Radio, and discover the truth for themselves?]
..................
Some questions and answers on Benedict XVI’s recent Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum
1. Why has the Pope seemingly taken a step backwards in allowing the former Tridentine rite of Mass alongside the one we have now?

Benedict XVI’s main concern seems to be to make a gesture of reconciliation to those who have never been able to accept the rite of Mass we have now. He wants to try to integrate them more closely into the Church as a whole, so he is to a small extent relaxing the rules regarding when celebrations of the Tridentine rite can take place.
In England and Wales we have already had an indult from Rome, obtained in 1971 by Cardinal Heenan, allowing celebrations of the Tridentine Mass with the permission of the local bishop.
The latest document merely eases slightly the legislation that had already been relaxed for the universal Church in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

2. Who may ask for a celebration in the Tridentine rite?

It is important to know that a vital word was changed in the final version of the Pope’s letter, compared with the earlier draft.
Available English translations made use of the draft and have not yet incorporated this change. [This is true -- it is important to know that the Holy Father deliberately DID NOT USE the word on which Mr. Inwood places so much import.]
Under the terms of the Motu Proprio, only those who have a history of celebrating in, or mounting pressure for celebrations in, the Tridentine rite may request such a celebration from a parish priest.
[To quote Fr Z, this is a absolutely FALSE. ]
In other words, this rite must be to an extent normative for them, not a novelty. What this means in practice is that people cannot now decide that they want a Tridentine celebration and ask for it. They have to have been celebrating in that rite, or have pressured for it, continuously (the Latin word is continenter, changed from stabiliter in the final version.)
[This is a bone-headed Catch 22 commonly cited by "liturgists."
It's as if your Mom served Cream of Wheat every morning for hundreds of days, and then one morning, without asking you, switched to Maypo.
And Maypo was all that you found on the breakfast table for the next 40 days.
She refused to even have Cream of Wheat in the house.
Oh, maybe you groused about it for a while, but hungry is hungry, so you ate the Maypo.
And after a while, you stopped even bothering to whine about being deprived of your Cream of Wheat, since complaining did no good, and in fact, even made Mom crankier. Maybe she even smacked you for it once,when you got too obstreperous.
You still preferred Cream of Wheat, and if you stayed over at a friend's house sometimes you got lucky and got to have it, but the younger ones couldn't even remember it, and you learned not to bring the subject up if you knew what was good for you.
Then one day Dad asks, hey, how come we never have Cream of Wheat? the kids be able to have Cream of Wheat if they want it!
And Mom says, well, sure. Okay. But, umm... they don't really want it, see? no one has eaten it in years! So I guess I can serve it, but only to the ones who have asked for it continuously during the time I told them they were bad and disloyal even to think about it. Will that do, honey, that's what you meant, right?]
In the Diocese of Portsmouth, generous provision has been made for a number of years in certain parishes (e.g. in the Reading area, for the Latin Mass Society) for regular celebrations in the Tridentine rite, and those celebrations will obviously continue. But there is no obligation to start new ones where groups have not previously existed.
The same would be true of requests for celebration of some sacraments in the former rite. [Hmm.... ya mean if someone who asked to be confirmed in the old rite every time he was confirmed before wants to be confirmed in the old rite, he's entitled to be confirmed in the EF next time he's confirmed?]

3. What form of Mass is allowed by the Motu Proprio?

The same form as that allowed under Cardinal Heenan’s indult: the 1962 Missal, a revision of the Tridentine Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII. This introduced some changes into the rite, changes which are not always observed or appreciated by those who celebrate the Tridentine rite. However, pre-1962 versions of the Tridentine rite are not permitted under the terms of either indult or Motu Proprio.

4. Are there any other significant differences that we should know about?

Some of the liturgical laws in force in 1962 have been abrogated or superseded. For example, in 1962 a Tridentine Mass could not be celebrated in the afternoon: that prohibition has now ceased. [I have long wondered about this. I grew up with both Saturday and Sunday evening Masses, to fulfill Sunday obligation. Then we had a new Bishop and one, I don't remember, was done away with on his order. Nowadays, it seems to me that both are relatively common, so I am assuming there is no universal prohibition against either.
BUT, and as usual I have a big but... I am forced to wonder: if these were never done in the pre-V2 Church, it stands to reason that those most attached to the liturgical forms of the pre-V2 Church would not be all that amenable to the practice.
Right?
So is that fact that in the rare instances where the Tridentine Mass was allowed by an American diocese it was, if not most commonly, at least very commonly an afternoon Mass, was this a deliberate thumb in the eye of those who wanted the Tridentine Mass? Just askin'....]

The faithful are no longer required to fast for three hours as they were in 1962, and a priest may not deny the reception of Holy Communion in the hand if someone requests it. Concelebration and the reception of Holy Communion under both kinds may both take place in Tridentine rite celebrations, if desired.
A community that wants to make use of girl altar servers and scripture readings in the vernacular may do so, even though females were formerly prohibited from ministering in the sanctuary under the previous legislation. Whether those taking part in such celebrations will want to observe any of these changes is another question, and they are not obliged to, though if anyone asks for any of these differences to be incorporated it would be wise pastorally to accede to such requests.
[Now, why is it "pastorally wise" to accede to these request, but not to those for the EF in the first place? Bueller? Bueller? And the chances of a community asking for the EF also asking for altar girls are slim-to-none, but it sure would be a great opportunity for another thumb in the eye of a Trad Community]
On a more technical level, a Tridentine Mass may take place even if the priest does not possess a maniple or a burse for the corporal – neither of these affects the conduct of the rite.
Since subdeacons no longer exist, in a solemn celebration that role can be fulfilled by a cleric or a lay acolyte (the latter would wear only the alb, not the subdeacon’s tunicle).
However, the Calendar and Lectionary in use in 1962 would need to be used. The Pope has foreseen the possibility of amending and expanding these to include more recent feasts and a wider selection of scripture readings, but this is something for the future. Rooted in the present, however, is the question of our diocesan child protection policy. It appears that some priests coming into our diocese from outside to celebrate Tridentine Masses in recent times have not received a CRB disclosure.
In Portsmouth, all priests presiding at a Eucharist have to have a valid CRB document, and the absence of this has resulted in some cancellations of Tridentine celebrations in recent months.
[This, I imagine, is something like the useless in practice, IMO, but much needed in theory, "Protecting God's Children." And frankly, it is high time someone put together a good program serving the same purpose.]

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